Investigative reporting and Kyrgyzstan's selective justice

At a Bishkek roundtable Tuesday called "The Fourth
Estate: Rule of the Game," Almambet Shykmamatov, Kyrgyzstan's justice minister,
encouraged local reporters to expose government corruption, local press reported. The
minister said authorities would follow up on such reports, grant security to
investigative journalists, and might even pay them up to 20 percent of the
funds that corrupt officials return to state coffers.

The minister's call might sound encouraging to those who
are aware of how deeply corruption is embedded in this mountainous Central
Asian nation. In its most recent report, Transparency International, a global
anti-corruption organization, ranked
Kyrgyzstan 164 out of 183 countries surveyed. In other words, the country
was placed among those nations with the strongest perceptions of corruption.

At the same time, local news reports and CPJ research
show that those who expose corruption are targeted in retaliation for their
work while the officials they investigate enjoy impunity. Unless authorities
reverse these trends--as exemplified in two cases below--the minister's call will
be meaningless.

Azimjon
Askarov, an investigative reporter and the head of a local human rights
group, did exactly what Shykmamatov called on the journalists to do--he exposed
corruption and abuse among police and prosecutors in the southern Jalal-Abad
region. For years, he investigated and reported on the fabrication of criminal
cases, and torture, rape, and killing of detainees by police in his native
village of Bazar-Korgon. But in June 2010, local authorities imprisoned
him in connection to the then-ravaging ethnic conflict in the region, and
slammed him with a life
sentence three months later on a set of politicized and fabricated charges.

Askarov and his lawyers told CPJ that local police and
prosecutors had long sought to pay him back for his exposés,
which had forced many officials out of office. Following his arrest, police
tortured the journalist in custody, and threatened to rape his daughter and
wife if he refused to hand over his reporting materials, Askarov told CPJ.
Despite protests by his lawyer and rights activists, including CPJ, authorities
refused to hold police responsible, and the judges failed to inquire into
bruises on his face. The journalist continues to serve his term; advocacy for
his release is ongoing. Last week, a CPJ delegation met with the Kyrgyz
ambassador to the United States to discuss Askarov's case, and the ambassador agreed
to present our findings to the president.

Meanwhile, according to the regional news website Ferghana News, in early June authorities
in the Jalal-Abad region released from pretrial custody into house arrest four Bazar-Korgon
police officers who were arrested on charges of killing a detainee in August
2011. The case stems from the detention of a local man whom police held and
brutally beat while trying to extort US$6,000, Ferghana News reported. After the man gave his captors part of the
sum, he was let go--but died at a hospital two days later, having been diagnosed
with a broken sternum, post-traumatic shock, and injury to his internal organs.
Before he died, the man described his torture to his wife and doctors.

Outcry in the media prompted regional authorities to arrest
the four officers. But, according to local media, prosecution in the seemingly
clear-cut case became troublesome due to threats and pressure by the officers'
families and supporters against witnesses and a local doctor, who examined the
man before his death. According to the regional news website Voice of
Freedom, during the trial those who testified against the police reversed
their statements. The judges ignored this, sent the case back to regional
prosecutors, and released the suspects to house arrest.

These cases show that in Kyrgyzstan, justice is enforced
selectively; in addition to blocking press freedom and the rule of law, this
trend only contributes to the spread of corruption. If Shykmamatov wants his
call to be implemented, the minister should make sure that justice is universally
applied according to the law. He could start with Askarov's case.

Muzaffar Suleymanov, research associate for CPJ's Europe and Central Asia Program, has a master’s degree in international peace studies from the U.N. University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica.

CPJ joins call for Kyrgyzstan to end restrictive media practices

March 14, 2018 3:20 PM ET

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined a coalition of 28 other international press freedom organizations to call on Kyrgyz authorities to drop defamation lawsuits and to end the practice of using disproportionate fines, travel bans and other harsh penalties to punish critical media outlets and journalists....

In a milestone decision announced today in Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Committee called on Kyrgyzstan to immediately release Azimjon Askarov, a journalist sentenced to life in prison in September 2010. The U.N. body issued its decision after reviewing a complaint filed in November 2012 by Askarov's lawyer, Nurbek...